At ETech Emerging Democracy: I’m happy to say that I’ll be on a panel led by Dan Gillmor at the ETech Emerging Democracy confab. I’m also looking forward to meeting leading Iranian blogger Pedram Moallemian in San Diego. If you’re in the nabe….

Arrrgh: I love I Want Media but I may have to stop going there until a talking ad disappears. Every time I go to the page, it starts jabbering with no way to shut it up. I’m saying all this so IWantMedia’s proprietor can go to the advertiser and say people are complaining. My complaint isn’t with him; it’s with a company called Adfare — whom, you’d think, would know better.

Dear Harriette: When my wife gets mad at me, she writes on her Web site what I did wrong that day. We are in counseling, but sometimes my words will be twisted around on the site. She tells me not to go to the site, but I know one of our neighbors does and I want to know what is being said about me on a public Web site. Any advice? — Tom, Texas

Wise-cracking funnyman Al Franken yesterday body-slammed a demonstrator to the ground after the man tried to shout down Gov. Howard Dean.

The tussle left Franken’s trademark thick-rim glasses broken, but he said he was not injured….

Franken said he’s not backing Dean but merely wanted to protect the right of people to speak freely…. “I’m neutral in this race but I’m for freedom of speech, which means people should be able to assemble and speak without being shouted down.” …

“I was a wrestler so I used a wrestling move,” Franken said.

That might seem like an odd contradiction — I’m in favor of free speech and so I body-slammed you to shut you up — but it turns out he was going after a Larouchie. Now it all makes sense, eh?

Better watch out, Bill O’Reilly.

: UPDATE: Nick, a commenter, says the Post is tabbing it up and he points us to two other versions of this most momentous event. From NRO:

But just then, a second protester stood up and began his own high-volume tirade.

“Dean’s a liar!” he hollered.

At that point, comedian Al Franken rose from among the journalists and others near the stage and said, “Let’s get him out of here.”

Franken and a few others hustled the second man outside. As they did so, the first ill-mannered LaRouchite reemerged…

Throughout all this commotion, Howard Dean’s fuse stayed long and moist.

Franken, a comedian and self-described liberal well-known for his attacks on the Bush administration and conservative-leaning media, helped carry out one of the disrupters. In the process, Franken’s glasses were knocked off his face and broke in two.

Putting them back together with electrical tape, he quipped he had been “deputized” by Dean’s security.